Background on Education

Race to the Top

Race to the Top: R2T is the education initiative funded by the Obama Recovery Act in 2009.
States submit competitive bids for educational reform, and the highest-scored plans are awarded funding in the range of $100 million to $500 million.
Emphasis in scoring is on teacher support, statewide reform, and student testing.

Common Core: The Common Core State Standards Initiative, begun in 2009, has been adopted fully by 32 states and partially adopted by 13 others. The Obama administration provided competitive ‘Race to the Top’ grants as an incentive for states to adopt the Common Core. The Common Core defines standards for math and English, with standards to come in the future for science and social studies. Because the standards are copyrighted, critics consider them to be a ‘one-size-fits-all’ model, and a step towards nationalizing America's schools.

NCLB - No Child Left Behind

NCLB is the 2001 bipartisan law intended to improve K-12 schools, under the theory of standards-based education reform.

States are required to establish standardized testing, so that all high school graduates meet the test criteria.

States are also required to give options (school choice) to students who attend schools that fail to meet NCLB's Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP).

The controversy over NCLB currently focuses on funding:
Opponents of NCLB argue that states are provided inadequate federal funding for implementation of NCLB, and that therefore NCLB represents an "unfunded mandate" on states.

Proponents of NCLB argue that the law provides accountability for schools; fights against incompetent teachers;
and provides alternatives to failing schools.

Education Buzzwords

STEM:
"STEM" refers to science, technology, engineering and math -- the components of K-12 education which are considered the most lacking in the United States.
Governors and candidates of both parties insist that they will improve STEM education; it is an official designation when foreigners apply for immigrant visas (those with STEM degrees can get special visas).

Common Core:
The Common Core State Standards Initiative (begun in 2004 and formalized in 2009) defines what students should know, in terms of language and mathematics, at each grade level K-12.
As of 2014, it has been adopted in 44 states (not TX, VA, AK, NE, IN, and MN).
Because Common Core is a national standard, it has become a lightning-rod for states' rights activists (usually Republicans who oppose Obama), who claim the purpose is to override state educational norms and standards.

Intelligent Design:
refers to species development run by intelligent designer (implying God, without the explicitly religious terminology). In contrast, evolution teaches a random process for natural species development. Critics have called intelligent design a thinly disguised version of creationism, which takes a literal approach to the creation account in Genesis, that the earth was created in six days and is less than 10,000 years old.

Social Promotion: Candidates debate whether students should advance a grade merely to keep up with their peer group.
90% of K-12 students are promoted (10% per year are retained).

Teacher Pay: K-12 Teachers’ salaries average $34,200;
college instructors average $63,000; compared to $50,700 for similarly educated non-teachers.
Public school teachers earn 25% to 100% more than private school teachers.
Generally, any reference to ‘increasing teacher pay’ implies opposition to vouchers while negative references to teacher’s unions implies support of vouchers.

Teacher Testing: Current law is that states certify teachers and decide what their requirements are; there are currently no national standards nor testing.
Liberals favor raising teacher pay and oppose teacher testing on the grounds of treating teachers more ‘professionally’.

Student Testing: Many conservatives advocate for national testing standard or other forms of ‘standards-based education’.
Generally, any reference to ‘standards,’ or especially to dealing with ‘failing schools’, implies support of school vouchers.

Smaller Class Size: Many liberals advocate for smaller class sizes, and/or building more schools to achieve them.
Generally, any reference to ‘smaller classrooms,’ or especially to ‘building public schools’, implies opposition to funding private schools.

School Prayer: Current law is that schools allow religious groups to organize on school grounds as if they are any club.
Schools are not allowed to conduct prayers at the beginning of school,
but neither are they allowed to stop a student from praying.

Bilingual Education: Schools may conduct classes in Spanish or other languages using federal ‘Title VII’ funds,
which totaled $380 million last year (1% of total spending).
13% of K-12 students speak a language other than English at home.
Generally, liberals favor bilingual education while conservatives favor ‘official English.’

DOE: The Department of Education spent $38 billion last year (2% of the federal budget).
But federal spending only accounts for 9% of education spending; most of the annual $600 billion comes from state & local sources.
Hard-core conservatives favor abolishing the Department of Education, which was a Republican Party platform plank in the 1980s.

Phonics: Phonics is a method of teaching children to read by sounding out phonemes (groups of letters that represent sounds).
Generally, a favorable reference to ‘phonics’ implies a conservative viewpoint on all the other education issues listed here.

School Choice

‘School Choice’ generally refers to a school district allowing parents to decide which school within the district to send their kids to.
The political issue is whether to allow the choice to include private schools, parochial schools, and home schooling at taxpayer expense.
Taxpayer funding of parochial schools potentially violates the Constitutional separation of church and state.
Taxpayer funding of private schools is controversial because it subsidizes parents who are currently paying for private schools themselves, and are usually more wealthy than the average public school family.

Charter Schools

‘Charter schools’ are publicly-funded and publicly-controlled schools which are privately run. They are usually required to adhere to fewer district rules than regular public schools.

By 2011, there were 5,600 public charter schools enrolling more than two million students nationwide. More than 400,000 students remain on wait lists to attend charter schools. Over 500 new public charter schools opened their doors in the 2011-12 school year, an estimated increase of 200,000 students.

Vouchers

‘Vouchers’ are a means of implementing school choice -- parents are given a ‘voucher’ by the school district, which entitles them to, say, $4,000 applicable to either public school or private school tuition.
The value of the voucher is generally lower than the cost of one year of public education (which averages $5,200), so private schools (where tuition averages $8,500) may require cash payment in addition to the voucher.

Education Buzzwords

Generally, any reference to ‘standards,’ or especially to dealing with ‘failing schools’, implies support of school vouchers.
Generally, any reference to ‘smaller classrooms,’ or especially to ‘building public schools’, implies opposition to funding private schools.

K-12 Education Statistics

Total spending is $260 billion, (7% federal; the rest split state & local) rising by 5% per year.

Student population is 50 million,
rising slowly (1 million per year) since 1984.

Public school spending is $5,200 per student, staying about even with inflation.

Parochial school costs $4,200 per student,
not discounting church-provided buildings & other subsidies.

Private school costs $8,500 per student,
not discounting scholarships or other financial aid.